


New Man

by EmmyGreene



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Zombie Apocalypse, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:57:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22629799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmyGreene/pseuds/EmmyGreene
Summary: Beth Greene’s got a new boyfriend- so why does she keep calling Daryl?A series of phones calls between my favourite two. Loosely inspired by Ed Sheeran’s ‘New Man’
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Beth Greene
Comments: 16
Kudos: 71





	1. The First Call

**Author's Note:**

> The first part of this has been sitting in the notes on my phone for TWO years so I thought it was time I actually published it. 
> 
> It’s been forever and a day since I wrote anything! I did finish off part two tonight and hopefully will keep it moving fairly quickly from here. Wow, it feels good to be back!

‘Hey Daryl’  
She’s drunk, or at least tipsy, he can tell right away by her singsong voice. He sighs before answering her  
‘Hi Beth’  
There’s nothing whimsical about his voice. It’s two am and he was fast asleep. He only answered in case it was an emergency.  
‘You wanna come pick me up?’ She asks. He groans, there it is. Not so much a crisis as as drunk girl with no way home.  
‘Where are ya?’  
‘Home’  
Well that wasn’t the answer he was expecting.  
‘Everything Ok?’  
‘Everything is great. Except Jake passed out like two hours ago and you know how I get when I’m tipsy’  
He groaned again. Horny. Her normally affectionate self transforms from innocent and snugly to ‘can’t get my clothes off quick enough’ once she’s a couple of wine coolers down.  
He grunts instead of replying, all but ready to hang up the phone.  
‘Ya could come get me and take me to the woods, like we always used too’  
He wishes her voice wasn’t so inviting because he knows he can’t pick her up, that they shouldn’t even be having this conversation.  
‘Beth, y’know I’m not gonna take ya parkin’’ he says, his voice firm.  
‘Cause of Jake?’ She says, the cadence of her tone almost mocking now.  
He can’t think of any worthwhile response, wonders if it was rhetoric and then Beth continues.  
‘Cause he’d never have to know’  
‘That ain’t who ya are’ He mumbles into the phone.  
‘It could be’  
‘I’m going’ Daryl says, cranky now and eager to get back to sleep.  
‘Yer no fun anymore.’ She says, the tone of rejection in her voice seems fake, forced.  
‘Good night Beth’ he says, his finger on the button ready to hang up, he hears her breathy voice reply  
‘Goodnight Daryl Dixon’


	2. Call 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't added to this, I just haven't had time but here's two chapters at once to make up for it and get the ball rolling again.

‘Beth Greene’   
Her name flashes on the display and he groans as he answers, not knowing what to expect. He holds the phone to his ear and makes a grunting sound into it.  
‘Daryl, hi’ she breathes into the phone, her voice barely above a whisper.   
He grunts again, he doesn’t know what else to say.   
‘I’m so sorry about last night, I shouldn’t a called ya like that’ she says, her voice rushed and even though she’s still whispering, he can hear the nerves behind it. He doesn’t get a chance to respond before she continues.   
‘I was so drunk, I can’t even remember what I said, I hope I wasn’ too embarrassin’ ‘  
He smirks, because he knows full well she wasn’t so drunk she can’t remember, but it’s easier on both of them to play along.  
‘I was half asleep Beth, barely remember ya callin’’   
He hears her breathe a sigh of relief into the phone and he’s waiting for her to apologise again and hang up, she’s apologised and what else could she possibly have to say to him? But she doesn’t.   
‘Hey Daryl’   
‘hmmm’   
‘I was watchin’ the fireflies the other night and was thinkin’ of ya tellin’ me all about ‘em an’ that only the males glow’   
He wishes she hadn’t said it. He can’t figure out if she’s still talking to be kind, or because she’s embarrassed and wanted to change the subject; but now he’s picturing the way she looked spread out on an old picnic rug last summer, all frizzy curls and bright blue eyes at dusk and he the way he felt that if he died right then, he’d die a happy man. She couldn’t know that he’s thought about that night a hundred times or more since then, that it’s the image of her he knows he’ll carry around forever.   
‘Ya still there?’ he realises he’s been silent for a long time so he grunts back into the phone.   
‘Ya always knew so much more than me’ she says, he voice is so low now he can hardly hear her.   
‘Yeah I’m full of useless shit like that’ he replies and he’s surprised to find he is whispering too.   
‘Beth, why are ya whisperin’?   
‘I’m stayin’ with Maggie an’ I didn’t want her listenin’ in’ Beth says, her voice low.   
He can’t help but roll his eyes. Damn Maggie, the sister who never gave him a moment of her time.   
‘It’s weird here’ she says, ‘in Georgia again, everythin’ all dif’rent an’ all’.   
And there she’s said it, without saying it, she sounds more like him than she ever has before and he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say in return. She’s not wrong, it is all different, but she’s the one who made it that way.   
‘Don’ feel so different to me’ he says, which is only a half lie. The town doesn’t feel any different this week than it did the one before but he’s had almost two years here without here. He’s had time to get used to how it is without her around. She hasn’t been home since she left him behind.   
‘I guess, I jus’, feels weird like I’ve been gone no time but a really long time as well’   
Daryl hears a voice in the background calling out to her, it’s deep and he can’t place it.   
‘Hey, I’ve gotta go, sorry again about last night’ she says, whispering even lower and rushed. She hangs up before he can respond and realises Maggie wasn’t the only one Beth didn’t want listening in.


	3. Call 3

For the first time ever, Daryl contemplates not answering when he sees her name flash across the screen. He’s pissed at her, not just mad but he’s hurt as well. But he’s already downed three beers and has started on an old bottle of whiskey he found stashed at the back of his hallway closet so he closes his eyes and grimaces slightly as he swipes his thumb across the screen to answer.   
He listens to the silence on the other end for a moment before realising that although he picked up never spoke. Then again, let her speak first.   
‘Daryl, ya there?’ she’s speaking in a whisper. He nods his head then realises she can’t see him.  
‘Hmmm’ he grunts into the phone.   
‘I’m so sorry’ she breathes ‘I, I shoulda said hello’  
‘Hmm’ he grunts again because it’s easier. He doesn’t want to tell her that he spent the rest of the day seething over it. He doesn’t want her to know that it hurt him like breaking up all over again, that it’s the reason he’s drinking straight from the dusty old bottle right now.   
‘It’s just…Jake’ she says slowly ‘he knows I’ve got an ex in town, but he doesn’t know who ya are an I didn’t wanna make things weird, if he knew, y’know?’   
Daryl puts the bottle down and begins chewing on the end of his thumb instead. It’s an old nervous habit.   
‘So that was ‘im then?’ he finally speaks.  
‘Jake? Yeah… did ya like wanna meet him?’   
Daryl scoffs.  
‘I don’t wanna know anythin’ bout him but he looks like a dick’  
‘Hey, don’t be like that’ she says.   
‘Sorry, but he aint look like yer type at all’  
‘An y’know all about my type Daryl Dixon?’   
He takes a breath and tries to settle himself but something about her saying his whole name always gets him. He’s never been able to explain it but the only time he’s ever liked his name is when it’s rolling off her lips. And she knows it.  
‘I know ya, an I know ya aint the kinda girl that spends an hour preening yerself every mornin’ like he does. Know ya aint ever gonna spend more ‘an fifty bucks on a pair a jeans. He looks like a cartoon’   
‘He’s just different’ she says, her voice gone quiet again ‘I needed different. I’m different now too’.   
‘If ya say so’ he says but he doesn’t believe it for a minute. She might have had the cropped top and fancy purse over her shoulder but she was still the same Beth underneath.   
‘Anyway, I’m sorry I didn’t speak to ya, it felt weird, I felt bad, I didn’t want ya to thin….’ Her voice fades out and he knows exactly what she was going to say before she stopped herself.   
‘That I wasn’t good enough, that ya were ashamed a me?’ there’s a thin trickle of blood flowing from his thumb straight into his mouth now, he bites down harder and continues talking, his voice only slightly more mumbled than usual. ‘I didn’t need ta see ya today to know ya thought that, ya made that clear two years ago Beth’. He can hear the anger in his voice and he knows she’ll hear it too.   
‘I’m sorry Daryl, it’s not that, not really’   
He doesn’t respond, doesn’t know how to. They sit there in silence. He can hear her fidgeting and his almost certain she’s twirling the curls at the bottom of her pony tail around and around. That’s what she does when she’s nervous.   
Finally she breaks the silence, he doesn’t even know how long it was.   
‘Daryl, next time I see ya, I’ll say somethin’, no matter who’s with me ok? I’m really sorry’. He knows she’s trying to do the right thing but there’s an edge to her voice that’s a little too close to sympathetic and he can’t handle that.   
‘Night Beth’ he says as he puts down the phone and reaches for the bottle again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, I promise it wont take me so long to update this next time


	4. Call 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this is about twice as long as I expected it to be.   
Initially I wanted to keep this whole fic to their calls and nothing else but I felt like it just needed to expand a little beyond that.

He wishes she hadn’t called him again, or at all really.  
He’s spent the better part of the past two years trying not to think about her and now it’s a Wednesday morning and he’s hungover for the third time this week, scrolling on her Instagram. He’d deleted the app when they broke up, he only even had it because she’d put it on his phone and he was never going to post some kind of filtered photo of his breakfast for the world to see. In fact he can’t even remember opening it more than once to find out what the hell it was but last night he thought it might be a good idea to reinstall it and take a trip down memory lane. There were a handful of pictures of the two of them together, at her farm, on his bike, on a trip they took to the beach but mostly it was her horses and boots she took pictures of back then. He never knew why but she was always posting photos of those damned boots. It hurt to look at them, hurt to look at her, fresh faced and smiling so wide, those big blue eyes full of joy. Then they broke up and slowly but surely her feed changed. He tried not to double tap as he scrolled back up but slowly her face became lost to the makeup she started painting on, her clothes became fancier and those boots rarely made a mention. And then Jake entered the scene. Daryl couldn’t help but scoff at pictures of the guy he could only describe with the word ‘douche’. He wore sunglasses, indoors, in winter at nightime as he posed next to an almost unrecognisable Beth as some club in the city. Daryl tried to zoom in for a closer look at Beth’s face, she looked almost frozen and that’s when he did it- hit the picture and the heart flashed on the screen. He threw the phone down instantly, as if it were hot enough to burn him. He bent over to pick it up from the floor, hoping maybe he could undo it before she noticed but instantly it started to ring.   
‘Shit’ he said as he answered   
‘and Hello to you too Daryl Dixon’.   
He could only grunt in response. He’d been busted and he knew it.   
‘Wanna know something weird?’ she asked, but without even pausing for him to answer she continued ‘I just got a notification that ya like this picture of me an’ Jake in Atlanta last summer… and I know how much ya just hate instagram so….’ Her voice faded out.  
He could feel his cheeks turning red and was glad there was no way for her to see them through the phone.   
‘Just tryin’ a find somethin’ an’ I must hit some other picture by mistake’ he chokes out, hoping it sounds casual, hoping he can weasel his way out of this just a little. He doesn’t like lying in general, and definitely not to her, but it’s less awkard this way. He can’t tell her he was zooming in because those tight braids and bronzed cheeks made her look like some kinda Kardashian wannabe.   
‘An’ what were ya tryin’ ta find then?’ she asks, her voice teasing.   
‘I was hopin’ ya’d taken some kinda picture at that diner we went to when we visited yer brother, that one with all the pink that made me wanna puke but then the burgers were real good’ he thinks he may just have covered his ass. That was one of the best burgers he’d ever eaten and he knows he told her about it at least twice afterwards.   
She lets out something between a giggle and a sigh ‘oh’   
‘Just oh? Am I gonna find it’s name if I keep scrollin’ or what?’   
‘I dunno. Maybe, if ya confess ya were just creeping on my Instagram ta check out my boyfriend, I’ll tell ya what it was called. Might even take ya there myself’ she says.   
He groans, of course she knew. He was only lying to himself thinking he could pull one over her. She knows him. Well she knew him and he isn’t the one whose done all the changing.   
‘Jus’ wanted ta check and see if ya looked happy’ he finally says into the phone. And that’s true, in part, because he did want to see if Beth looked happier with Jake than she did with him and her pictures left him unconvinced.   
‘Oh’.. she pauses for a moment ‘I am… happy, I mean, of course I’m happy’   
‘an’ it looks like ya got what ya wanted then. He’s young and all the rest of it’.   
And now he’s gone and said it without thinking. Their last fight, their only real fight, the night she broke up with him out of nowhere she claimed he was too old. ‘Too old, under educated and stuck in this god damn town’ were the words that came out of his mouth and he’d always suspected her sister put them there. Beth had never cared about any of that and in weekend apparently changed her mind and walked away. The girl he’d spent three years adoring broke his heart and left him behind, just like everyone warned him she would. 

‘I… I guess. I dunno’ she pauses and sighs again ‘yer older than me, when d’ya think ya know what ya want? Or that what ya wanted really is what ya wanted? Am I even makin’ sense? Oh I, I dunno Daryl.’   
She sounded like herself when he picked up, a little mischievous but definitely Beth but now, she seems kind of flat and sad.   
‘I dunno Beth. I was a lot older than ya are now, an’ even then… well y’know, I’m still figuring it out I guess. It’s different for me, was never bout what I wanted until I was too old and it was too late’   
He’s not just talking about her, but his whole life in general. She was the one who pointed it out to him, a few years ago as they sat on the sand and he cried in front of her for the first time and told her everything that had ever happened. She said all he wanted was to feel loved and he realised she was right, but he’d been so busy trying to stay alive that he hadn’t even noticed. He hadn’t realised at all how empty his life was until he met her. She was what he had wanted. She still was. 

‘Hey Daryl’ her voice breaks through from his thoughts and he realises he’s been silent for some time.   
‘It’s called Rosie’s, that diner. We could go there if ya wanted, like tonight even?   
He shakes his head at the ridiculous thought of it.   
‘That place has gotta be like, two hours away at least’   
‘So?’  
‘I’m not drivin that far jus’ fer a burger Beth’   
‘It could be like a roadtrip’ suddenly there’s a touch of her normal self back in her voice.   
‘Beth, we can’t go off on some road trip. Doncha have a boyfriend in town with ya? A boyfriend ya don’t want knowin’ ‘bout me?’ he reminds her.   
And whatever he thought he’d heard come back is gone again when she responds ‘he’s gone off overnight, with some guys that his brother knows’   
‘So yer lonely?’   
‘Daryl, I’m always lonely’ she says flatly ‘He goes out without me all the time’.   
Reflexively Daryl puts his thumb to his mouth and bites down. He doesn’t want to speak right now, doesn’t want to ask her what the hell she’s doing. He doesn’t want to be that jerk, that jealous ex who always rags on her new man.   
‘Ya don’t go out with ‘im?’ he finally asks. Enough of her pictures were of the two of them at parties or nights out, it looked like all they ever did was go out together.   
‘Hardly ever, only if like, he needs a girlfriend there. Forget it, I’m gonna go’ She rushes that last part and he can sense that she regrets saying it.   
‘Y’allright?’ he asks.   
‘I’m fine Daryl, I gotta go’   
‘See ya Beth’ he hangs up the phone. His head is pounding and he knows it’s not just the hangover anymore. Was she trying to tell him she’s not happy? Did she almost sound happy Daryl had been maybe checking her pictures out, hoping it meant something? He used to be able to read her like a book, sometimes it was like they didn’t even need to speak but so much had changed since then. All he knew was that when Beth was his girl, she wasn’t ever left on her own unless she wanted to be. He can’t keep his mind off Beth Greene this week and it’s not just because she keeps calling him.


	5. Call 5

Daryl’s only just crawled into bed at 3 AM when he hears his phone buzzing. He isn’t surprised, not really he just thought she might wait until morning when he’s had a chance to sleep a little.

‘Hmmmph’ He grumbles into the phone as he answers.

‘Did you see who he went home with?’ her voice is panicky as she asks.

‘What?’

‘Don’t be stupid Daryl, Jake, did ya seem him leavin’?’

It had been a long night. Daryl had been working security at the only bar within an hour of their hometown that needed one. He’d seen Beth early in the night, she shimmied in with a face full of make-up and glitter and tight clothes that he knew were supposed to make her look attractive, but they just made him feel sad. She didn’t look comfortable and she didn’t look happy. She looked like a girl who was playing the part she’d fallen into.   
  
He spotted them right away, even before Joel the owner let out a low whistle and said ‘I sure as heck aint seen her in here before’. He’d noticed the others staring at her too and he realised she did as well, her shoulders were drawn and tense, her movements rigid. She was there to be on display.

She waved at him nervously from across the room and, to his surprise she actually did walk over towards him, pulling at Jake to come with her. She was rigid and polite. She might have been doing the right thing and acknowledging Daryl, but she clearly didn’t want Jake to know they’d been talking. He was short and cold to Daryl, completely disinterested and eager to pull Beth back over to the bar. She mouthed a ‘sorry’ as he pulled her away.   
  
Daryl lost sight of them for a while. It was a busy night and the place was packed. He spent most of his shift checking ID and directing giggling drunken girls to the bathrooms. He removed one guy for trying to start a fight; basically, business as usual for a Friday night. Daryl hated this job but Joel paid cash and he was saving everything he could to buy his own place. He was working three jobs and this was highest paying so he sucked it up and put up with the smoky haze, loud music and occasional vomit that hit him from those who partied a little too hard.   
  
Somewhere in the midst of all that he’d noticed another group arrive, they weren’t the usual crowd. Girls that were preened and primed in skin-tight clothes and shoes they shouldn’t be able to walk in on the arms of guys wearing sunglasses in designer jeans and crisp white shoes that surely weren’t going to survive the night. He watched them as they sought out Jake and made a general spectacle of themselves. Beth shrank in on herself, he could see it from a mile away. She wasn’t comfortable as they crowded around her. The other girls seemed to ignore her and before long she was left at the bar alone as they moved on to the dance floor.   
  


He wanted to help her somehow, but what could he do? By that stage in the evening he couldn’t leave the door and anyway, she wouldn’t want to be seen with _him_ right now, not with everyone else there watching. He noticed other men approached her and then when he looked back she was gone. He assumed she left and went home but he had been busy, once it hit midnight he had work to do removing the drunk and disorderly, keeping the underage kids with their big brothers’ licenses out and even mopping up the odd bit of vomit.

Just as it was all starting to wind down he noticed that the group who sought Jake out earlier will still there, dancing in the middle oblivious to everyone else. It took him a moment to even figure out which one Jake was; they all looked the same in their identical outfits and perfectly groomed hair, that didn’t seem to move despite all the bouncing around. Finally he picked him out of the bunch, now moving towards the back of the pack with his arms around a redhead. He flinched as he watched Jake run his hands all over the girl’s body then lean in to whisper in her ear.   
At that moment Joel signalled to him to call a Taxi, there were a pair of blonde girls slumped together on the bench by the door, they clearly needed help getting home. He looked after them and just as he closed the cab door to send them on his way, he turned back to see Jake leaving the venue, his arm around the waist of the redhead.   
  
‘Daryl, did ya see him?’ her voice cut back through his thoughts.

‘Yeah Beth, I did. Where are ya now?’ he asked, he didn’t give a shit where Jake was, he just wanted to know Beth was home safe.

‘I’m back at Maggie’s, I left around midnight but it’s been hours and he still isn’t home and he’s not answerin’ me when I call’   
  
‘Why’d ya leave without ‘im anyway?’ Daryl asks. He knows, of course he knows, but he wants to hear if she’ll say it, test out what she might already know so he doesn’t have to crush her when he tells her where Jake went.   
  
She sighs and her voice trembles a little ‘If Maggie asks, I had a headache and I don’t really like bars anyway’ she stops for a moment and Daryl hears a tiny sob escape from her ‘but they were doin’ drugs an’ I didn’t want any part of that, not after last time an’ anyway he always ignores me once others show up’

‘Who were they?’ Daryl asks, ignoring the rest of it, he’ll come back to that later

‘Just guys he knows, he’s been hanging out with them all week. When we came here, I thought… I thought it would be different. He’s so sweet when we’re alone and I thought down here with just the two us it wouldn’t be like… well like it is. But he just knows people everywhere an’ it’s just more a the same thin’ an’ now I don’t even know where he is’ she sounds sad and tired. Daryl hates Jake, not because he looks like the kind of guy you just want to punch in the face but because he’s hurting Beth and Daryl can’t stand that.

‘Beth, he left with a girl, redhead, tight black pants’.

He hears another sob, then another and he can tell Beth is crying. He can hear footsteps and the door creak, she hangs up the phone.   
  
Daryl doesn’t know what he should do. He hates to think of her crying like that but there’s clearly someone there with her so he doesn’t know if he should call back. He has half a mind to drive over to Maggie’s house and see her himself but that wouldn’t help anyone so he lays there contemplating what to do when his phone vibrates again.

‘I’m sorry, Maggie heard me talkin’ an’ came in to check on me’ she whispers into the phone.

‘You OK?’ he asks. He can’t imagine Maggie as a sympathetic listener.

‘Not really’ she says ‘Maggie told me not to worry, they’ve probably just all moved on to some other party and he’ll be back in the mornin’’ she pauses a moment ‘d’ya think that could be right?’ d’ya think they were all jus’ goin’ out together?’   
  
He considers his options. He could lie to be kind, but she’d never really believe him anyway.

‘I dunno Beth, I only saw the two of ‘em when they left’

‘Oh’ she sobs quietly a moment longer

‘Beth… why are ya with ‘im anyway?’ he can’t help but ask. He just can’t understand why she’s putting up with this. The Beth he knew only a few years ago would never have put up with being treated this way.

‘I don’t know’ she says softly. ‘He was sweet, to begin with and y’know he’s… well he’s the opposite of you an’ that’s…that’s kinda what I was supposed to do right? It’s what everyone wanted…’ her voice fades out.

Daryl groans because he can’t handle this conversation right now, he knows he asked but he didn’t expect it to turn back to this.   
  
‘Beth, yer the one who went an’ broke up with me. I wanted ya to go ta college, yer sister did too, but I think that mighta been about all we agreed on. I don’t know what ‘everyone’ wanted or who ‘everyone’ is Beth… thought ya was the one who wanted the opposite a me, that’s kinda what ya said’

He can hear her crying now and he regrets that the conversation took this turn, he doesn’t want to do this now.

‘I don’t know, I don’t know what I wanted’ she says in a quiet voice. ‘There was so much pressure from Maggie, an’ ya know Shaun just kind of goes along with whatever she says an I was young an’ stupid… I dunno, Maggie’s friend Cara, she was on campus one day and she introduced me to Jake, they’re like second cousins or somethin’ an’ Maggie was so excited about it and I thought well I came to college for a fresh start but… Daryl, I don’t think I needed a fresh start. I just needed time away from town an’ maybe I had to be on my own for a bit but not like this’   
  
When he doesn’t know what to say, Daryl stays silent, always has. This is one of those times. He lets the silence hang there between them as he chews on the side of this thumb.   
  
Beth sobs loudly ‘Ever since Daddy died, right when I was learning to cope without losin’ my Momma oh y’know what all that was like well, I just… I think I just fell apart and I felt so good away from everyone at first, like I was gettin’ my life back on track an’ Maggie was So happy about me an’ Jake but now… Daryl I don’t know what to do’

‘Yeah ya do’ he heard himself say ‘y’know exactly what ya need to do’

‘I just don’t wanna disappoint anyone’

‘Nobody that loves ya is gonna be disappointed is ya break up with some guy that’s been treatin’ ya like shit’

‘I hope so’ she says, her voice barely more than a whisper ‘I gotta go, gotta sleep, thanks Daryl’   
  
she hangs up before he can respond. He doesn’t fall back to sleep for a long time after that, he replays their conversation over and over again in his mind. Beth deserves love more than anyone he’s ever known. She’s the sweetest, kindest person he has ever met and he hates to hear her so broken up over some jackass. He rolls over in bed and it just about to doze off when he hears his phone vibrate ‘Thank you Daryl Dixon xx ’ it reads and he falls asleep clutching it to his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be a shorter one and wrap this story up.   
Thanks for reading. Wherever you are in the world, I hope you are staying safe and isolation/social distancing isn't driving you too crazy.


	6. Call 6 + 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, so I had the idea for this story sitting around for over two years. I've had it drafted, planned and then I started writing and it came out really different to how I'd planned and... I just didn't really like it. So I've finished it off because I hate reading a fic that just fades out and never gets completed. So here it is and honestly I'm happy it is over!

He hasn’t been able to keep his mind on anything all week, well anything except her. Four years ago he fell in love with her and he knew he’d only been lying to himself recently to say he’d moved on. Her showing back up this summer and calling him all the damn time had messed with him enough, without learning that she was unhappy and he was a cheater. He couldn’t handle it, it just didn’t sit right with him and he wanted to intervene, to knock some sense into her but he knew she had to come to her senses on her own.   
When his phone starts ringing on his way home from work, he doesn’t even entertain the thought that it would be anyone else.   
The hands free speakers in his car have barely kicked in before her voice fills space around him. 

‘Daryl, I need help, please’ her voice is hoarse and panicked. ‘I need ya ta come an’ get me’

‘Beth, where are ya?’   
‘At a gas station halfway between home an’ Atlanta’ she can barely squeak it out. 

‘Tell me exactly where ya are an’ I can be there in an hour’ he says. He doesn’t ask any more questions, he doesn’t need to know anything else. She’s asked and that’s enough for him.   
She quickly gives him an address and he punches it into his GPS, the line falls so silent that he assumes she’s hung up but then he hears it, Beth crying softly into the phone.   
He hates the sound of her crying. He’d been there with her through some of the toughest times in her life and he hated it then but he hates it even more now.   
‘Beth? Ya want me ta talk ta ya until I get there?’ he asks  
That elicits the smallest of giggles from her.   
‘You hate talkin’ just to the sake of talkin’’ she says softly, but to him he’s already achieved his purpose. He doesn’t want her crying at some gas station alone.   
‘not always’ he says. He never really hated it with her.   
She takes a deep breath ‘Then tell me about that dog you got, I never even met it’.   
He smirks, this was easy, so he fills in as much time as he can telling her about how he picked up the stray dog his neighbour was trying to find a home for right as Beth was leaving. He doesn’t tell her how much he had needed the distraction, and the company. He tells her about how he trained it, turned it into a good hunting dog. How he vowed he’d never be the type but damned if he doesn’t let him sleep on the end of his bed.   
‘and ya really never named him?’   
‘Didn’t see a need, he answers to Dog’   
Beth giggles again, its light but it sounds like her. He can tell she’s calmed down from when he first picked up the phone.   
‘Hey Daryl’ she says after a moments silence. 

‘Hey Beth’ he teases in response.   
‘Thank you, for just comin’ to get me like this’  
‘It’s nothing’ he says.   
‘Don’t ya even wanna know why I need ya to come an’ get me?’   
‘Ya can tell me about it if ya want, or I can jus’ drop ya back to yer sisters and we can pretend it never happened’. He hasn’t put much thought into the why. Obviously it’s something to do with Jake and he really doesn’t want to be involved with anything that concerns that guy.   
‘Oh I can’t go back to Maggie’s’ Beth’s voice is rushed again ‘I mean, not yet anyway. She’ll be so mad and ya know what she’s like when she’s mad. I’m gonna have to call her an’ give her some time’.   
‘Beth, where am I takin’ ya then?’ he asks. Maybe back to the apartment she lives in during school, her brothers? He doesn’t know where else Beth would have to go. She’s not like the rest of the college students, she doesn’t have a ‘home’ to return too.   
‘I… I hadn’t really thought that part through’ she says. ‘I just… I couldn’t stay with him another moment. He decided last night we had to leave town, he wanted to come to the city for the rest of the summer. And then… Daryl he started talkin’ about buyin’ a place together. Somewhere near school but so it would jus’ be us and… I jus’ couldn’t do it Daryl. I can’t live with him. And if I can’t live with him, then I shouldn’t be datin’ him and all of a sudden, I jus’ saw him for the hack that he is. Y’know I’d started wonderin’ why he even wanted to be with me anyway…and then I realised it’s because I’m the kinda girl his parents want him to be with. And… unlike everyone else our age, I’m not waitin’ for parents to die to inherit money, or hand over a bit when I get married or graduate. I’ve already got their money. How was he gonna buy a house? He needed Mama and Daddy’s money for that an’… I just couldn’t look at him a moment longer. I told him to pull over and let me out. And then I sat here an hour cryin’ because I didn’t know what to do. And then I called ya to come and save me again, because ya always do’. She had started sobbing again now.   
‘Ya don’t need me ta save ya Beth, sounds like ya managed that all on yer own’ he says, as he passes an underpass and realises he is only a few minutes away from her now.   
‘I got part way there, but now I don’t know what to do next’ she sighed. ‘I probably should have waited until we got to Atlanta, at least I coulda caught a bus back to… well wherever I’m goin’’   
‘Come home with me’ he says it without thinking, he doesn’t have anywhere for her to sleep and his small house sure isn’t clean enough for guests but its Beth and he can make it work.  
‘Really?’ she asks   
He nods, then realises that of course she can’t see him.

‘Uhuh’ he says. He can just see the bright lights at the top of the gas station in the distance now and warm feeling starts to spread through him.   
‘Thank you, I’ll sort stuff out with Maggie soon, I just, I need some space from all of them right now’ she says hurriedly.   
‘Take as much time as ya need’ he says, ‘I’m about two minutes away now, make sure I can find ya when I get there’.   
He’s trying to stop his heart from pounding. He knows she’s going through something and now isn’t the time to worry about him but he has missed her. He’s missed her so much his body ached for her, so much he finally understood why people talk about having a broken heart, so much that some of those country songs his Ma used to sing stopped seeming stupid. And he just wants her to be happy again, to be herself again. He loves her, plain and simple.   
‘I’m just pullin’ in now’ he says and as he turns in off the road he sees a blonde figure with a duffel bag slung over her arm and another hung over her back walkin’ towards him.   
‘I see ya’ she says then hangs up the phone. He pulls over and jumps out, ready to help with her bags. Instead she drops them to the ground and throws her arms around him. 

Up close he could see her eyes were red and bloodshot, with black makeup streaked around them. Her nose was red and her hair had gone frizzy around the edges. Despite that, she was still the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. He slowly brings his arms up to hold her and he can’t help but notice how right it feels. He holds her for a moment then lets her go   
‘C’mon, we got a whole drive ahead of us’ he says, lifting her bags.   
She climbs up into the front seat of his truck and waits for him.   
‘I’m sorry’ she says softly ‘not jus’ for this but for everythin’ that happened then an’ now an’… well sorry’.   
‘Ya don’t gotta be sorry’ he says, then adds ‘Beth, I will always be here for ya, no matter what’. 

‘I know’ she says looking at him ‘that’s why I’m so sorry’.   
He tries to smile at her, but it never feels right to him, to smile so instead he turns the key to start the car and focuses on the road.  
‘C’mon he says, ya gotta come and meet Dog’ 

Beth stays with him the rest of the summer. She can’t bring herself to go back to her sisters. Despite the close quarters, Daryl tries to keep his distance. He wants to give her time to heal, to process what she’s been through. He sleeps on the floor in a small back room, he doesn’t hang out with her unless she seeks him out. He notices she takes herself off for a lot of long walks and reads almost constantly. All the same, he loves having her close by, enjoys eating with her most nights and waking up to the sound of her singing in the shower. The last night before she’s set to return to college, he wakes up to his phone ringing in the middle of the night. He panics when he sees her name on the screen, she’s supposed to be in bed.   
‘Daryl Dixon’ she whispers into the phone  
He grunts in return, she doesn’t sound like she’s in any danger.   
‘Can you come in here with me?’   
He stands up still holding the phone   
‘Ya sure that’s what ya want?’   
‘it’s all I ever wanted’ she breathes.   
He pads down the hall and climbs into bed next to her, hanging up the phone before she rolls into the space she always fit best. 

‘I’m still goin’ to school tomorrow’ she whispers, ‘but every holiday and vacation, I’m coming home to you’. He kisses her forehead and holds her tight. This is all he ever wanted as well.


End file.
